The Monster Men
by bretticus1218
Summary: It's a dark, moonless night, but this camping trip turns into something more than just storytelling around a campfire after a while, especially when the Winchesters are involved...


"It was a dark, moonless night."

"Aww, Jakes, really?"

"Come on, do something new for once."

Darry grinned. "Moonless nights are no fun."

"Will you all just let me tell the story?" The one named Jakes complained. "I'm trying to entertain you like you asked." He pushed his dark curls off his forehead and stuck his lower lip out in a pout.

The dying embers of the fire flickered as a blonde, bored-looking girl stirred them with a stick. Her eyes glowed in the firelight and the boy named Darry tossed some more wood onto the fire. He then settled back on the ground, leaning against a log. There were four of them, all spread out around the small campfire. The summer night was warm, the breeze filled with the scent of fire as it lightly drifted into the twilight sky.

"Do you guys want to hear a ghost story or not?" Jakes asked indignantly.

"Not your ghost stories," the blonde complained. "Your stories suck."

Another girl with frizzy brown hair nodded and slapped Jakes' knee. "Sorry dude, it's true."

Jakes stuck his tongue out at the blonde. "Emma knows she loves my stories. She gets all hot about them."

Emma rolled her eyes. "Keep your gay pants on, twerp. We've all heard the mysterious tale before."

"I resent that statement, Em. These pants were not gay before I bought them, I bring out the gay in them."

"I would think _I _would be the one to get hot about them," the brown haired girl winked at Jakes, her eyes reflecting the flames.

Darry laughed. "Let's not do it here, Sara, we're not trying to die. Or get arrested."

Emma laughed. "Not a problem for me."

"Well, I could tell you about who _would _be a problem for you, Em." Jakes waggled his eyebrows.

Sara sighed dramatically. "If you must."

Emma groaned. "But make it original, don't be all boring like usual. We've all heard the standard before."

"Oh shush." Darry scooted over to Jakes and laced his fingers through his "I like your stories."

"You're the only one who appreciates me."

Emma tossed a piece of soft charcoal at the couple. "Get a room."

"But if you're going to tell the story, tell it, Jakes!" Sara rubbed her bare arms. "I don't want to be out here all night."

"Alright." Jakes settled himself on the ground, next to Darry. "So, it was a dark, moonless night..."

A hush descended on the other three teenagers, the warm night suddenly held a sharp tang, an uneasy feeling. They shifted on their logs, listening to Jakes.

Oblivious to them, Jakes continued. "So there was no light. A girl was walking down the street and the lamplight was making puddles of yellow on the pavement. She pulled her jacket around herself as she walked into the harsh breeze, her own neighborhood looking dark and unfamiliar in the night air. She heard a twig snap behind her but when she turned around to see if she was being followed there was no one there. She knew the stories. She walked faster.

"She reached her house, her old familiar house and she quickly got out her keys and opened the door with shaking hands. When she closed the wooden door behind her, she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't know why but the night felt...uneasy. Wrong, somehow. She tossed her keys onto a side table in the entry hall, because, y'know, everyone has those side tables." Jakes grinned briefly but continued. "Her heartbeat was slowing down and she flipped on the light. But," Jakes paused for effect. "The minute the light hit her eyes, she was grabbed from behind and...everything...went...black!"

The silence around the campfire was tangible as Jakes finished talking.

"Winchesters," Emma finally said grimly.

Darry nodded. "Winchesters."

Sara flinched, but all the same she murmured. "Winchesters."

Then, simultaneously, all four of them spit into the fire pit, making the embers hiss and sizzle.

Emma wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "What was she? Not that they'd care, but what was she?"

Jakes shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant, but telling the story had clearly put him on edge. "I always heard it as wolf."

Darry flinched. "Of course you did. So did I. That's how all the pack leaders tell the stories of the scary, scary Winchesters." He made ghost noises at the girls.

Emma nodded. "I was always told shifter." She turned to look at Sara, her eyes flashing as the firelight hit them.

Sara sighed. "Dragon, I always heard dragon." She pulled a red hot ember out of the fire and started playing with it in her hands, rolling it between her fingers as her eyes glowed, mimicking the coals.

Jakes sighed. "You guys heard about the Pond boy?"

"Yeah," Emma nodded, pulling on a piece of her blonde hair. "That's the worst thing, that the stories are all true. They're out there, those sons of bitches, they do that kind of stuff to us and our kind."

"Wait," Sara interjected. "Who was the Pond boy? I haven't heard that one."

Darry chuckled. "What, have you been living under a rock?"

Sara shrugged and Jakes nudged Darry playfully. "Be nice, not all of us have a wolf pack to keep us informed."

Darry shrugged. "Fair. The Ponds," he told Sara. "Were monsters, like us. I don't even remember their race. A minority thing. Whatever. But they weren't hurting anyone. They fed off brains or something and the mom worked at a morgue and had a little kid. She got the brains from the morgue and the family lived in peace. Then, she had to kill a bunch of lowlifes, druggies and such, because her kid was sick and needed fresh brains. Lowlifes, right? No one wanted them around. And her _kid_ was dying. But the Winchesters tracked her down, and even though the tall one was friends with her when they were younger? Bam," Darry drew a line across his throat with his index finger. "Dead. As the kid watched."

Sara breathed out hard, her voice sounding thick with emotion. "Why the _hell_ would they do that?"

Darry shrugged. "They don't care about us. We're all the same to them, just big sacks of blood and teeth and bones and a mind that wants to kill. They don't care what we are."

Sara fidgeted, clearly upset and fighting the urge to cry. "How can they do that? We belong on this earth too, that's not fair! They're the monsters, not us!"

Emma bit her lip and nodded while Darry sighed and twisted his fingers together.

"Yeah." Jakes paused but pushed back his curls and continued talking. "Yeah, their definition of a monster is far from home. It's something we can't change, y'know? And you two," He gestured to Sara and Emma. "You don't know what it's like." They started to respond but he cut them off. "I mean, sure you're 'monsters' too, with us, but Darry and I...we're wolves. We changed, we weren't born like this." Darry nodded and Jakes started absentmindedly picking at a loose thread on his shirt. "I'm not saying that being born into this life is any easier but we...we used to be the kind of people that those...those Winchesters, the hunters, that they would protect. Then, by someone else's will, it's all gone. Your life. Your humanity. You know what the worst part is? Thinking you're a monster, you, yourself, looking in the mirror and...and wanting to tear your eyes out so you don't have to look at your own face...I hate that. And even though we've done nothing, even though all of us here are innocent of any crime, you know the Wincehsters would shoot us all the same. It's in their nature, just like they think it's in our nature to kill."

"But it is in our nature to kill." Sara shrugged. "Some of us anyway."

"But the innocents?" Emma asked, emotion rising in our voice. "Something we can't change, something we learn to live with, it's not okay to strike someone down for something they _might_ do. The hunters might call it insurance, to kill us before we can hurt anyone, but that's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard. They don't care about us, they don't even care about the humans. They just care about themselves and that's the way it'll always be."

Darry nodded and thumped on the log. "Hear hear."

The fire embers dimmed even lower and Sara stuck her hand in to feel how hot the fire was. "It's dead. We should go home, we've been out here for way too long."

Jakes grinned. "Don't get killed by the Winchesters on your way home, yeah?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "Do my best."

The four rose at the same time and wandered to a pickup truck on a dirt road a few feet from the campfire. They climbed inside, the intense mood waning as Darry turned on the radio and Emma and Jakes argued about who was worse, Justin Bieber or One Direction, Sara chiming in whenever she felt there was something worth saying. As they drove down the dirt road, into the night, a calm decended over the four. Getting that talk out of their system had clearly made them happier, as if now they could go back to ignoring the fact that they were anything but normal, that their time on this earth was shorter than most. Shorter than almost all.

They dropped Sara off first, at her mother's house, then they let Emma down at her roommate's house. As she waved them away, into the warm summer night, she smiled to herself. Life got bad, sometimes, but good friends to share it with made the bad times better. She turned around, searching for her keys in her bag, the lamplight making puddles of yellow on the pavement. She checked the mailbox unconsciously as she walked to the door, not expecting to see any mail, but habit all the same. She unlocked the door to her house and wandered into the dark house, flipping on the lights as she went. Throwing her keys on the side table, she scanned the den to check for the usual sleeping figure of Rachel, her sweet roommate on the couch. Wandering into the kitchen she flipped on the light and dumped her bag on the counter, not noticing a red stain on the tiles under her feet. She moved to turn on the faucet and get some water, but before she could move another inch, she felt rough arms grab her from behind. Too surprised to scream, she couldn't make a sound as she felt a sharp pain plunge itself in her gasped as a red hot pain spread like ice to every pore of her body. She couldn't help it. She screamed. Then everything went black.


End file.
